Armando and Gina were locked in a private conversation, as was common these days, interspersed with nibbling kisses and private whispers. Jones was quite the fancy dresser with a white sport coat that matched his bright, white smile, putting them all to shame. Sanouk wore a starched dress shirt, but had not brought a jacket. The boy’s shiny dark hair was held back in a ponytail like Armando wore sometimes.
Kyle and Christy entered the room like royalty. She wore a large amber and coral necklace they’d bought in town. The large chunks of golden brown stones accented in deep red beads hung precariously low on her chest, drawing attention to her nice cleavage. Mark was sure most the Team guys were trying not to stare, out of respect for Kyle, but it was damned hard. She wore a batik dress in the same hues of orange and yellow, with a colorful wrap that covered her shoulders but left her chest exposed. She was regal, and striking as a Team Leader’s wife should be.
Moshe arrived just as they were seated. A junior officer of the ship, Teseo Dominichello, followed him. Mark was impressed that they rated such an important visitors, especially since they were pulling away from shore.
After the Americans were introduced, Moshe introduced Teseo to the group.
“My friend, here, also served in the Italian Special Forces, COMSUBIN, and was named after the great Teseo Tesei.”
Mark had read about the elite frogman teams from Italy who actually pre-dated the SEALs. His Team had trained with them on several occasions during joint operations focusing on the North African arena. They were just as tough as the SEALs, although not as well funded. Their centuries-long history of navigating the waters of the Mediterranean was a source of pride and was unequaled by any other fighting force in the area.
If Mark’s memory served him, the original Teseo had been a high-value target the Allies had tried to capture during World War II and he died evading them.
“He was a hell of a frogman. We use some of his inventions today,” Kyle added.
“The human torpedo,” Mark added.
“You related?” Rory asked. Mark had wanted to ask the same question.
“No, sorry to say. But I think my maternal grandmother was secretly in love with the man.”
That brought some chuckles from the table.
“He was from our village. I think all the women in town loved him.”
Mark asked the next question. “So, how do you go from being in the COMs to working on a cruise ship?”
Teseo and Moshe shared a glance.
“Divorce makes strange bedfellows of us all,” Moshe said sadly.
“My wife was unhappy with the lifestyle afforded by my disability pension,” Teseo began. “Moshe here helped get me a job with the line, and I thought my Carmella would enjoy cruising with me.” He looked down at his mineral water, then took a sip and crunched down on some ice. “I was wrong.”
Nobody had to explain the obvious. Being married to a dedicated warrior didn’t do much to pay the bills, and there were long gaps in their family life that sometimes were filled with extracurricular activities, on both sides, husbands and wives. It was a hard life, and only the dedicated couples, and they were in the minority, were lucky enough to keep a marriage alive.
“I miss them all,” Teseo said before anyone would have the audacity to ask if he had children.
“I’m beginning to think I’ll stay perpetually single,” Grady added.
“You still dive, Teseo?” Kyle asked.
“Absolutely. I bring my rebreather everywhere.”
“Seriously?” Cooper asked. “You don’t happen to have another set?”
“I have three. I sometimes accompany dive teams that need to do inspections. Never miss a chance to use my gear.”
“So are all your officers Italian, then?” Kyle asked.
“All but one. Maksym Tereschenko, from Ukraine,” said Teseo.
“He the tall guy with the pencil moustache?” Mark asked.
“That would be him. A full two meters tall and then some.”
“Russian,” Jones muttered.
“Not quite,” Teseo said. “One of our Ukrainian brothers, a ship’s captain without a Navy,” he added, “We have a few of them also in the engine room. Very skilled workmen, second to Italians, of course.” He shrugged and several of the SEALs laughed.
The kissing scene Mark had seen on shore, and then the quick view of Maksym in the cabin with the mysterious lady, troubled Mark.
“So you are allowed to brings wives along on cruises?” Mark asked.
“Occasionally.” Teseo moved around in his chair uncomfortably as the waitress took their wine orders. He continued when they had privacy. “We are not allowed to spend time with our families if they come, except occasionally at dinner, or on shore when we have a few hours here or there. It is forbidden to spend time in the passenger’s cabin, so you see, it is no, as you say, ‘picnic.’”
Mark had to ask. His radar was springing to life. “Is this Ukrainian guy married?”
Moshe leaned forward, accepted a glass of red wine from the steward and cleared his throat until the waitress left. “My understanding is that his wife and family left with a Russian diplomat last year. So I guess that would make him a single man, but not by choice, I don’t think.”
Mark was starting to feel like this was the wrong time to pursue the topic any further.
The dinner was delicious, a preplanned meal of prime rib and lobster. The meal lasted nearly two hours, but before they could finish, Moshe and Teseo were summoned to the bridge.
Mark thought he’d discuss his active imagination with Kyle in the morning. His LPO had been studying him carefully all throughout dinner and knew there was something brewing. It was his job to know these things. If Mark didn’t come to him first, Kyle would dig it out of him with a spoon.
Cruisin’ for a Seal: Chapter Ten
Sophia rushed through her dinner with a hand towel pinned behind her neck, protecting the skimpy red dress she wore for her upcoming dance instruction session with her Brazilian dance partner, Roberto. She stood during the four minutes it took to wolf down several forkfuls of salad and some pasta.
Roberto came up behind her, giving her a smooth caress over her bare shoulders, ending with a wet kiss at the base of her neck.
“You smell divine,” he whispered. His hands slid down her hips—hips that would experience a lot more of his hands during their dance routine. But privately, in the staff dining room, while she was eating, and in front of the Filipino wait staff and the Indian security staff, where they were crowded in like crabs in a bucket, his fingers on her flesh were a little creepy. That and the fact that his palms lingered just a little too long at her sides and his thumbs extended a little too far toward the juncture of her legs.
She wondered how Matheus would take to Roberto’s constant need to touch her. The man never wasted an opportunity to show affection, going beyond his natural Brazilian personality, which had confused her at first. In time, she recognized the signs of a wolf waiting for her to have a weak moment.
And that just wasn’t going to happen, tonight or any night. At least this was something that hadn’t changed since her fling with Mark. In fact, it had everything to do with her own self-respect and not the way her insides ached for the handsome American.
Sophia hitched her shoulders, made her back go limp and inched out of Roberto’s reach without acknowledging him. She made a mental note not to wear that perfume again, in case it was something the Brazilian particularly liked. “Meet you on Deck 5,” she called over her shoulder as she escaped.
Back in her quarters, her roommate had just finished gluing green rhinestones on her cheekbones. The contortionist from China slipped on a bright, lime-green satin cape with blue and green imitation peacock feathers at the neckline. Her green slippers fit her delicate feet snugly.
“Break a leg, Li.”
“You too,” she said as she swished past Sophia.
Sophia took out her red flower clip and placed it abov
e her left ear. She removed the towel and closely examined her dress for any evidence of dinner and found none. She walked through another spritz of perfume, this time a lemon scent, recalling gleefully that it had made Roberto sneeze once.
Showtime.
A sullen, dark-eyed male dancer who had just joined the ship stared at her skimpy hemline and scowled. Three of them clung to the shadows as if shy about entering the dining hall. She recognized the guttural Arabic tones she’d become familiar with in Morocco, breaking through whispers at her back as she made her way down the wider hall to the staff elevators.
A crowd surrounded Sophia and Roberto as she stretched back and away from the Brazilian dancer, her head flung back far enough to look in the opposite direction from his. When the music started, the frame of his arms and chest guided her, guiding her to bend and lean at his whim. She normally didn’t mind that she had to be so responsive to his touch, to his every direction, even the minute, subtle ones that warned her of a change in direction, a twirl or a tight, inside turn against his muscled torso. But she was more aware of the tightness in his pants than before, and he held her closer, his fingers again approaching areas that were off limits.
She wasn’t allowed to show expression as they glided across the dance floor, entertaining an enraptured crowd anxious to imitate them. Flashes blinded her as they danced precariously close to the crowd of onlookers, as they sashayed between them, and Roberto turned her with the command from his first two fingers. Colors of the walls and overhead lights streaked and blended like melted glass. Voices echoed as if coming from a dream.
At last the dance ended. As was their custom, he would bow to her and she would bend over her right leg in a graceful curtsey, but today Roberto held her longer, breathing in her scent, his nostrils flaring. She heard a low rumble deep in his throat, and then all of a sudden he released her and turned to acknowledge the crowd, which overflowed with applause and cheers. She held on to his two fingers as if tethered like a bird of prey, breathing hard and examining the edges of the room, looking for an escape.
But she saw no escape as she examined the distorted faces of the rotund tourists in various stages of intoxication. Their wild eyes and knowing stares pulled at her skin, making her feel like a caged animal.
The dance lesson itself was always led by Roberto. He’d demonstrate the correct posture and angle of the body, where the hands were placed, how she was to lean, where she was to look, how he was to give her the signal to do his bidding. She stoically demonstrated everything he explained, avoiding eye contact. A couple of times he dropped their stance and he shook her arms to loosen them up, asking her in a low, purring tone not be so tense. The more he begged her to relax the more the hair at the back of her neck stood on end. She even managed to take a ‘horrible misstep,’ which she never did, and land hard on top of his right foot.
Roberto examined her, peering down from his six-foot frame in what could only be called a sneer. She remained committed to showing no emotion. No smile, no flashing eyes, and no sad lift of the eyebrows. She thought of herself as a porcelain doll on display.
And then she saw Mark. He was leaning against one of the shiny columns in a pair of faded blue jeans, canvas slip-ons and a light blue long-sleeved V-necked T-shirt. It wasn’t fair that he could to stand there and stare at her, those blue eyes traveling all over her, challenging her to concentrate on the dance while knowing she was affected by his gaze. She made a point to avoid looking directly at him, but watched him from the corner of her eye so Roberto wouldn’t catch on.
But it was no use. Minutes after noticing the American who watched them dance, Roberto swung them very close, almost brushing against Mark’s chest and nearly causing them to collide with several older dancers as he whirled her around in his powerful arms. Roberto’s cheeks tightened as tiny lights in his dark eyes looked excited, but menacing. Fear crested up from her waist and scattered over her shoulders and arms, dissipating into the air above the dance floor.
The end of the music couldn’t come too soon. She floated to the side of her Brazilian partner, free from the grip of his fingers on hers, and felt like a piece of wrapping paper flung to the side by an impatient gift recipient. Until he grabbed her fingers, yanking them down, cracking one of her knuckles. Of course he wouldn’t look at her, but he let her know most emphatically that he was royally pissed, and, she would have to say, possibly violent.
But she wouldn’t let him see he had hurt her. It would only add to his pleasure in the debasement she’d experienced at his hand. Her eyes fluttered with demure elegance she’d seen Li manage after a bad fall from the ropes during her routine. Like the brave smile her mother always gave her when they talked about her American father, the husband she missed now more than ever.
The pain radiated down her wrist as Roberto curled back her entire hand, spun around quickly to the rapt applause from the audience who oblivious to what he’d just done. The smile plastered on his face was downright evil.
Tears streamed down her face as the pain began to get unbearable, and her arm got limp. Perhaps if she fainted, she thought, then he’d stop. But it would be just her luck, the Brazilian monster would carry her off to his room and do unmentionable things to her.
Does Matheus know about this, his best friend, and how he treats his fiancé?
The answer both puzzled and worried her. Surely he must know what Roberto was capable of? And if that were so, why would Matheus trust him to be on the cruise with her?
Roberto gave her a brief gloat just before he released her hand with a devilish grin and a flourish, extending his arm straight up into the air. She was going to say something when a hulking body pushed between her and her dance partner.
“Find someone else to torture, you son of a bitch,” Mark said, pushing her behind him.
For a brief second everything was hushed, quiet. Even the music stopped. Sophia knew Mark was leaving it up to Roberto decided how far he wanted to escalate things, and she could read in the American’s clenched jawline that he’d take it all the way if he needed to. The man was fully engaged.
Roberto was a smart man, she thought. He took a couple of steps back and bowed ever so slightly to Mark who now had completely blocked her from Roberto’s reach.
“She’s my partner,” Roberto hissed, but kept it low, just between the two of them.
“Not any longer. She quit,” Mark said without checking with her. Sophia wasn’t sure that was wise. “For now. Perhaps you can get yourself a French hen or a German polka dancer to abuse. But she’s done for the evening.” Mark stepped toward the Brazilian to emphasize the point.
Sophia looked down at her wrist, which was now getting black and blue. He had hurt her far more than she realized at the time. She hid it behind her back and was glad she had, since Mark grabbed her other wrist and led her off the dance floor. Behind her she heard Roberto instruct the crowd about what they’d just witnessed, trying to put them at ease.
“You see, ladies and gentlemen,” he almost shouted. “Dancing the Tango requires passion. The dance floor is a stage where love is explored in all its extremes.”
That seemed to satisfy the masses.
As Mark whisked her away from the crowds, she dared to ask the question, “Where are you taking me, Mark?”
“As far away from that bastard as possible.”
“Mark, it is my job.”
“No, it isn’t your job,” he said without looking at her. His cheekbones had tightened. He looked almost sick. “You don’t have to put up with that.”
He stopped abruptly, faced her, and for the first time looked in her eyes.
“Are you hurt?”
Her tears still trickled down her cheeks. She couldn’t answer him, keeping her wrist safely behind her back.
“Show me, Sophia. Show me what he did to you.”
“I’m okay.”
“Show me,” he demanded. He wasn’t smiling. Then, as if checking himself, suddenly softened. “I want to see your
hand, please, Sophia.” His palms gripped her cheeks as he drew her head to his face and touched her lips with his.
She tried to wrestle free, since it was forbidden. She didn’t want to get fired.
“I can’t. I can’t be seen with you, Mark. I’ll lose my job.”
“Then take me some place where no one else is, or, so help me God, I’ll drag you to my cabin.”
Cruisin’ for a Seal: Chapter Eleven
Mark was breathing hard. She’d insisted he follow her, but at a distance, so it wouldn’t appear he was pursuing her. Hell, yes, he was running after her. He never wanted to let her go. His protective nature had swelled to unrealistic proportions, and they could both get in trouble, but he would make sure she was safe, and then sort out the consequences later. So, if she said follow behind, some twenty feet behind, he’d do just that. He knew how to follow orders.
She almost disappeared down the stairwell by the elevators. He raced to catch up with her and spotted her rounding the corner to the left and down another corridor, past the internet station, past the chapel, to a meeting room of some kind set up with tables in rows facing a small lectern.
No one else was in the room, so he slowed down, expecting her to take up a chair, but she passed the lectern and exited a doorway onto a deck at lifeboat level. He checked the handle before he let the metal door close behind him to make sure they didn’t get locked out. The gray-painted surface of the deck felt spongy beneath his feet. It was eerie to see the ocean pouring past them sideways, while they were lulled by the rumble and noise of the huge ship’s engines. Looking right and then left, he reassured himself that they were completely alone.
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